1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to food processes and apparatus, and more specifically to a versatile counter-top tumbler apparatus and an associated tumbling process. The food tumbler and tumbling process are useful to selectively marinate meat, toss salads, cleanse food, bread foods, and for other similar purposes.
2. Description of the Related Art
The processing of food has always been a labor intensive task. Nevertheless, the need to safely prepare food is of vital importance, and has historically dictated the difference between entire civilizations rising or falling. Associated with the need for safe food preparation is the desire to enable a person to readily prepare more palatable and diverse meals with a minimum of expertise or training. As a result of the importance of food preparation, and the significant impact on health or labor even relatively small improvements will have, there has been much effort devoted through the ages on this task and a great many inventions pertaining thereto.
In the area of food safety, many techniques have been researched and developed which are provided to improve the safety of the food supply. Exemplary among these are the various inspections performed by the various governmental agricultural agencies, such as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) designed to ensure proper handling and processing of food prior to human consumption. Proper education and training is directly associated with the resulting safety and quality of a food. While these efforts have lead to an exceptionally safe food supply in the United States with regard to pathogens, which by many is considered to be among the best ever available, there continue to be significant instances where persons are inadvertently sickened, occasionally resulting in death. Owing to the reasonable limits on manpower for food inspection and inspection of food growers, handlers and preparers, it is impossible to provide inspection and verification of all food which enters into the marketplace for consumption. Only a fraction of a percent of food grown or imported is inspected, and costs for various analytical techniques restrict the extent of these inspections. Consequently, it is desirable to have a means for easily cleansing the food prior to final preparation and consumption which will improve the safety of the food, in the event the food has not been inspected and does, in fact, contain undesired pathogens, pesticides, herbicides or other contaminants.
Safety of food extends beyond the presence of foreign contaminants, and also includes the contents of the food when prepared a particular way. One popular method of cooking meat is grilling or barbecue cooking over a flame. This cooking method has been linked to increased risks of breast, stomach and colorectal cancer, owing to the formation of heterocyclic amines (HCAs) during the cooking process. However, marinating meat before grilling has been shown to reduce the amount of HCAs formed during grilling, in some cases by as much as 92 to 99 percent. Consequently, one preferred method for improving not only the taste of flame-grilled meats but also the safety thereof is to marinate the meat prior to grilling.
Safety of prepared food is only one concern. As aforementioned, preparation time, effort and training required of the food preparer are all also very important. In other words, the need for extensive human effort and expertise during food preparation may also be prohibitive, and thus deter otherwise desired preparation. While cleansing is certainly one such step requiring preparation time, effort and training, there are many other steps in food preparation that have historically been similarly labor intensive. Exemplary is the mixing of ingredients for tossed salad, cole slaw, pasta salad and the like. These foods have traditionally been prepared entirely by hand, owing to the fragile nature of the foods and the importance of even distribution of ingredients. Preparation of such ingredients in advance is difficult or impossible, owing to the inevitable separation of ingredients that occurs over time. Breading is another step that has been manually performed for smaller quantities of foods, with machinery available only for larger food establishments and food preparation businesses. When foods are breaded substantially in advance of cooking, such as when done on a commercial basis, the food must be frozen to maintain the quality of the breading through the handling and distribution of the food. Marinating meats is another area similar to breading, where machinery has only been available for larger commercial establishments. Examples of these marinating machines are found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,766 to Starkweather; U.S. Pat. No. 3,928,634 to Gasbarro; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,586 to Reed. The existing equipment has not been adequate for household use, owing to a large number of issues such as safety, cost of the complex equipment, and the lack of desire by a homeowner or apartment dweller to dedicate space for a single or limited function machine.
While safety, preparation time and effort, and complexity are all important factors from a utilitarian perspective, the variety of foods and the tastes, textures, appearances and aromas of those foods also serves as a measure of the quality and desirability of the food preparation. Consequently, more foods that are easily prepared and consumed, and greater varieties of pleasing flavors, tastes and aromas imparted to those foods, are desired.
Various machines and devices have been proposed in the prior art that attempt to address one or several of these important factors associated with food preparation. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,081,070 to Welsch and U.S. Pat. No. 3,439,901 to McCulloch each illustrate salad mixers that are designed to tumble a salad without the squashing or bruising that is typical with hand preparation. While each of these products are novel in their design and construction, they are limited in application to lettuce and other types of salads, and both are prone to leakage and failure. Other inventions have contemplated tumbling for other food products, such as the tumble churn illustrated by Clegg in U.S. Pat. No. 2,597,291, the contents which are incorporated herein by reference with regard to the teachings of a tumbler base and drive system. While the Clegg base and motor drive system offers much benefit over other prior art techniques, the Clegg container is designed to contain milk or cream, and act as a butter chum or other tumbling, agitating or mixing container. Unfortunately, the Clegg screw cap and depending vanes are relatively limited in application, since they are neither sturdy nor designed to prevent liquids from passing between them and the outer wall. In fact, the vanes will likely, with repeated usage, be deflected away form the edge of the container wall at one end or the other. Consequently, very little if any liquid may be actually carried upon the vanes, a limitation that is very consequential as will be better understood herein below. In addition, the screw-on cap is difficult to manipulate when a chef or cook's hands are either wet or oily, conditions which are commonplace within a food preparation area. Finally, the tapered neck on the Clegg container complicates access within the container, both for food insertion and removal, and also for cleaning of the container after food preparation using the container is completed. In fact, owing to the inherent limitations, the Clegg container is limited in application to materials that are generally fluid in nature and which are also relatively homogenous. This is a common limitation of the prior art. Clearly, there is much to be desired in this vital area of food preparation that has net been adequately addressed by the prior art.